Being possessed by, lost in, a Persona, is a typical situation, according to
Jung. ( Anyone who knows more about the actual therapy involved, feel free to push me aside and do the explaining, here.) One's own personality gets lost behind the Mask.
Jung, in my opinon, could do nothing to help
Sue, because, after all, she is the Persona ( Role) that
Nikki is trapped in.
Jung might attempt to 'cure'
Nikki of such an identification, but that would indeed 'hurt her performance.'
The more high status a Persona is ( such as a Judge, a Physician, a Movie Star, a Statesman) the more often such an identification ensues, so that one is reluctant to cast off the Persona at any time.
For instance look at the pitiful spectacle of
Hugo Chavez, Robert Mugabe, Vladimir Putin; the List is a long one, of creepy politicians reluctant to leave office when their term is done, rather like a soap opera character refusing to be 'killed off' when their role is written out of the script.
One of the things notable about
Sue is the way she rejects the Persona of the victim. Alas, when she
is a victim, this leads her to deny reality, which leads, as usual, to unhappiness. Although her toughness seems admirable, it is based on a false self image and lies. If there were a
Dr. K. in the house, he might try to bring
Sue to realize that so much of her story is fabricated, that her veneer of toughness prevents her from coming to terms with both her own victimization and transgressions , i.e., for the latter, her adultery and attempt to pass off the resulting child as
Smithy's. ( Men tend to really resent this behavior.)
More than any of the Possessed ( are these in fact the 'half-born' or 'half's that are referred to?)
Sue senses that 'something is wrong', that she is not the person that she thinks she is. Others, true, say ' I'm not the person you think I am', e.g.
Smithy, but, correctly or not, seem to at least know who they are, themselves.
**The reunion of
Smithy,
Lost Girl and the kid they could not produce, seems to be that of the fictional characters in
4 7/OHIBT, not the actors who portrayed them, though it could, I suppose, be the metaphysical , transcendental union of the actors and the characters.
'...how to tell the singer from the song...' -
Yeats
***Perhaps it's best if I do not continue the Gnostic rap, as it might offend someone's religious sensibilities.